Update Rollup 4 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 resolves issues that were found in Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 since the software was released. This update rollup is highly recommended for all Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 customers.For a list of changes that are included in this update rollup, see KB2706690. (not online yet)

Today brings exciting news for Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers with Netflix memberships. Once you download the most recent update to the Netflix app that is available now, you will have access to Netflix “Just for Kids.” It is an entertainment experience designed exclusively for children 12 and under that makes it easy and fun for families to browse and instantly watch a large selection of kid-friendly TV shows and movies.

Check out this video for a quick tour of the new navigation experience from our friend at Netflix, David Watson, director of product innovation.

Now, kids and parents can click and instantly watch their favorite characters, including many they’ll recognize from their favorite shows and movies. “Just for Kids” consists of titles organized by easy-to-understand genres such as superheroes, princesses, dinosaurs and girl power, featuring clear and simple descriptions of the plot of each title. And with Kinect for Xbox 360, all of your favorite entertainment on Netflix can be found by simply using your voice.

You're a stone's throw from attending Build.

When

Where

Where to Stay

We have negotiated discounted rates for hotels near the venue. Transportation between hotels and venue will be available as well. You will get a chance to pick a suitable hotel later in the registration process.

One of the things Word has always excelled at is content authoring, but there’s more to a document than just writing, reviewing and collaborating. Historically, many documents were received and read in a paper form, but the increasing ubiquity of digital devices has led to a world in which many documents never even reach a printer. Word has long had tools tailored for reading, but this release of Word we wanted to go even further to improve the modern consumption experience.As we worked on the new reading experience, there were a few high level design themes that emerged:

Incorporate the goodness from traditional paper reading

Embrace technology where it improves the experience

Keep a laser focus on the core scenario

With those ideas in mind, let’s take a look at what we built.

A new layout for the digital world

The first problem we had to tackle was layout. What does it mean to read on a digital device and how does it compare to the traditional paper experience? Being the reading feature crew, it was only natural that the first thing we did was to hit the books do a bit of research.

Make it personal

We know nothing in life is ever one-size-fits-all, so we added in a bit of customization that you can set independently for each device you own.

What about images?

By now you might’ve noticed we talk a lot about optimizing text, but most documents are far more than just a stream of text. They’re often full of images, tables, charts and so much more. With the new column layout we also reflow the figures in your document so they’ll fit within the new layout.

Custom page colors

Another feature we added to reading mode is custom page color. After a while, black text on a bright white background can really tire out the eyes. Since our goal is to make reading easier, we added in a couple other color modes to make it easier on the eyes. The sepia color mode is a trick we pulled from long form novels – have you ever noticed that the paper tends to be a little less bright? That subtle change makes a big difference after a few hundred pages.

Paper layout

We know this new column layout may not be for everyone or every document – sometimes you really need to read a document in its original layout. For those cases, we’ve added a paper layout into reading mode, so you can see that familiar document in a distraction free environment. Just go up to the View tab, and choose Paper Layout from the Layout fly out.

Special reading tools

Reading is about so much more than just the layout, though. Writing a document requires a very different set of tools than reading one. So we started over from the beginning and thought about which of our existing tools the user needs for reading, and which new features we needed to build.

Reading indicator

Navigation is a big part of the reading process, both in terms of knowing where you are and in terms of getting to the heading you want. We wanted to make sure that the navigation pane was available wherever you needed it, Reading Mode included – you can find it in the view drop down or from the page/screen number in the status bar.

Resume reading

Reading happens over time, you don’t always just sit and read a document until you are finished reading it. We knew this and we wanted to improve the transition between reading intervals and devices. You might want to read a document on your Windows phone or your Windows tablet, or maybe just on a traditional desktop or laptop.

Look up on the go

It’s great to be able to pick up where you left off, but sometimes, the big improvement is not having to leave in the first place. One big area where folks tend to lose their place is when they come across something unfamiliar in their document.

Annotations

Reading isn’t just about moving your eyes back and forth from line to line – for many documents it’s a process that involves a whole lot of note taking. If you’ve ever tried to buy a used textbook, you might know exactly what we mean. Reading a complex textbook is often a lot easier when you can highlight, add notes in the margin, and circle words.

Today we’re happy to announce new versions of Movie Maker and Photo Gallery for Windows 7 and Windows 8. We’ve added a few new capabilities while also taking advantage of some advances in Windows 8. Movie Maker and Photo Gallery are two essential Windows applications hundreds of millions of people have come to rely on for making the most of your photos and videos. And with this release, we’ve given you a few more reasons to enjoy them even more.

Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a great way to turn your ordinary photos and videos into a captivating story. Whether you’re making a short clip to quickly share or taking your time to make the most of that big event, Movie Maker showcases your skills as a budding film-maker. With major advancements in hardware accelerated graphics in Windows 8, Movie Maker has evolved to include these state of the art enhancements.

Video Stabilization: Sometimes the video we take is just little too shaky; especially as we take more and more videos using our phones and smaller video cameras. Movie Maker has taken advantage of new technology in Windows 8 to smooth out your wobbly videos.

Music: The one thing that can really make a difference in a movie is the soundtrack. But it can be hard to find not only the right piece of music but a version with the appropriate rights. And even if you choose a song from your own collection, it runs the risk of being stripped out once it’s published to YouTube for not having the appropriate rights. So we decided to work with AudioMicro, Free Music Archive and the Vimeo Music Store to make it easy to find music that is not only fitting for video, but also has the proper rights.

Text Effects: Including text in movies continues to be a popular way to add depth or highlights but sometimes the font can get lost making it hard to read. One way to enhance the text is to place an outline around your text. Now when you add text in Movie Maker, you can also add an outline that makes the text stand out from the background.

H.264 by default: One of the most popular video formats out there today is h.264 which is rapidly becoming the default format for cameras and video sharing. Now Movie Maker saves to this format by default making it easier to publish your video to popular sharing websites, managing your videos and your files between services and devices.

Photo Gallery

In Windows 8, Windows Photo Gallery is the number one way to organize, fix, find and share your photos and videos. And with advanced features like Photo Fuse and Panorama, Photo Gallery continues to bring creative enhancement to your memories.

Auto Collage: Trying to create a collage of photos on your own is hard and usually requires expensive and complex software. With Auto Collage in Photo Gallery you just select seven or more photos and we’ll arrange them in a collage for you.

Vimeo: We’re excited to announce Vimeo as our new publish partner! Now you can share your videos straight to Vimeo from both Photo Gallery and Movie Maker. Once you have your project saved and are ready to share it with the world, just click on the Vimeo button in the share gallery, choose from a variety of options that Vimeo provides and you’re done. Now your movies can become a part of an ever growing community of film makers who call Vimeo their home.

Posted by sumeethevans on August 8 2012, 3:18 PM.
Posted in Windows 8.

If you’ve read this blog before then you know that one of the roles of Microsoft IT is to be the first customer of Microsoft’s commercial products and services. Through this program the IT department manages a phased, employee adoption of early versions of Microsoft products and services. We call this “dogfood” in that we’re eating our own dogfood. This program enables the IT department to help Microsoft’s product teams deliver higher quality products and services to customers, both near-term and long-term.

We’re currently “dogfooding” several products and services, but the most interest is with Windows 8 and IE 10 Release Preview. As of mid-July we had more than 30,000 systems and nearly 30,000 employees running Windows 8 and IE10.

Today I’m happy to announce the debut of the Windows Phone Dev Center, the new online home for Windows Phone developers. The site, an evolution of our retired App Hub developer portal, is designed to provide everything you need to build, publish, and manage apps for Windows Phones around the world. The result of months of careful planning and attention to your feedback, it has new features to help make Windows Phone app development faster and more profitable.

Here are some highlights

Redesigned from the ground up

More markets, more ways to get paid

More flexible sign-up and submission

Better reports and analytics

Everything important in one place

Posted by sumeethevans on August 8 2012, 3:13 PM.
Posted in Windows 8.

Microsoft is planning to remove certain features from its Office 2013 RT edition, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. The software maker is planning to ship a Preview version of Office 2013 RT as part of its Windows RT ARM-based tablets later this year. We understand the Preview edition will be upgradeable to a final copy that will be made available in early 2013.

To optimize for Windows RT, Microsoft has made the decision to remove a number of features from its Office 2013 RT release to ensure battery life and reliability are not impacted on tablet devices. Macros, third-party add-ins, and VBA support will all be dropped from the Office 2013 RT edition, and one source says a "small number" of other features have also been removed.

Posted by sumeethevans on August 8 2012, 3:12 PM.
Posted in Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft has entered into an IP licensing agreement with Sharp Corp. to use the latest Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT). The agreement covers the use of exFAT in smartphones distributed by Sharp based on the Android platform. Today’s deal marks continued momentum by Microsoft for its exFAT technology licensing program.

exFAT is a modern file system that facilitates large files for audiovisual media and enables seamless data portability for an easy interchange of files between desktop PCs and other electronic devices. exFAT improves on its predecessor, the FAT file system, and greatly expands the size of files that flash memory devices can handle — by more than five times over the previous technology. It also greatly increases the speed with which those files can be accessed.

Today’s agreement allows Sharp to incorporate the latest file system from Microsoft in its product portfolio and deliver faster response times and greater storage capabilities to consumers around the globe.

“Consumers today move from mobile phones, to PCs, to home entertainment systems throughout their day — and they expect their media to move as seamlessly across those devices as they do,” said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel, Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. “This agreement allows Sharp to continue to stay ahead of the curve and give people around the world entertainment and productivity experiences that truly fit their lifestyles.”

AD FS Multi-Namespace support: Multi-namespace support with AD FS 2.0 enables you to use a single AD FS 2.0 server that has multiple Forefront UAG trunks when the FQDNs (the public host names) of the trunks are in different domains. For example, the FQDN of the first trunk is portal.contoso.com and the FQDN of the second trunk is portal.fabrikam.com. Both trunks can be configured to perform AD FS authentication by using the same AD FS 2.0 server sts.contoso.com. In this kind of deployment, the AD FS 2.0 server is published through one of the Forefront UAG trunks, or by an AD FS proxy that is parallel to Forefront UAG.

Use the AD FS Proxy to publish the AD FS 2.0 Server: The AD FS proxy has many benefits compared to publishing the AD FS 2.0 server through Forefront UAG; including, support for Office365 authentication and mobile devices.

Enable complex topologies: For example, by using Forefront UAG to publish a SharePoint website located in one site when the AD FS server is located in another site

Posted by sumeethevans on August 8 2012, 3:08 PM.
Posted in Windows 8.

Microsoft is killing off the use of its Metro design name to describe a tiled interface in Windows Phone and Windows 8. We brought you news of the change earlier today, but a tipster has provided an internal memo sent to Microsoft employees confirming the move. In it, Microsoft reveals that "discussions with an important European partner" led to the decision to "discontinue the use" of the Metro branding for Windows 8 and other Microsoft products — one that employees must adhere to immediately.

The Windows team is "working on a replacement term" according to the memo, "and plans to land on that by the end of this week." Until then, employees have been advised to refer to the Metro style user interface as the "Windows 8 style UI." The memo was distributed to employees earlier this week, so we expect to hear official news about the Metro replacement by the weekend.

Today, the Windows and Windows Server teams announced that Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 have been released to manufacturing. In keeping with our goal of delivering great tools on the same cadence as our platforms, I’m thrilled to announce that we have completed final builds of Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5.

This has been an exciting road for all of us involved in these projects, and we’re glad to be able to deliver these to our customers. For MSDN Subscribers, the bits will be available for download on August 15th. Visual Studio Professional, Premium, Test Professional, and Ultimate with MSDN Subscribers can also sign up for a free, one year developer account for Windows Store today, with Windows Phone developer accounts coming soon.

We’re also planning an exciting launch event on September 12th, so mark your calendars, and visit http://visualstudiolaunch.com for more details. Thank you to all of you that have taken the time to try the Visual Studio 2012 Developer Preview, Beta, and Release Candidate releases. Your feedback has been very helpful.